


Quick Fix

by BlueThorne



Series: Best of All Possible Worlds [4]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dadgil Week (Devil May Cry), Family Fluff, Gen, Minor Injuries, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:46:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24870097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueThorne/pseuds/BlueThorne
Summary: The Sparda house always has plenty of boxes of adhesive bandages on hand for little trouble-magnet Nero.Set between Mockingbird and Icarus but can be read standalone.
Series: Best of All Possible Worlds [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1207059
Comments: 13
Kudos: 84





	Quick Fix

**Author's Note:**

> Day 3 Dadgil Week fic for the "Colors" prompt. Just a little drabbly character piece for stressed dad Vergil and his little nerd son. Nero's about 8 here.

We seemed to go through a box of adhesive bandages per week. Though Nero liked the sets with all the different colors, he reserved the yellow and orange ones for cuts on his feet or elbows so he didn’t have to see them as much. He wore blue and purple proudly on his face and hands, red and green on his knees. 

I rarely saw him without a complete set. Even Dante didn’t wear so many when we were Nero’s age. Perhaps that was due to our stronger demonic blood helping us heal because I was certain we’d been much more violent than Nero. We’d dueled with sticks, whipping long welts along each other’s arms and legs, and once we’d had enough of trying to play fair, one of us would tackle the other to the ground in a rush of fists and teeth. 

We always made sure to scrub away any bloodstains with mud before heading home. We destroyed many of our clothes that way, and Mom would always sigh at the sight of us. “Have you apologized to each other?” she’d ask, recognizing all the signs of a fight. We’d grumble denials, and she’d drop down to our level, grabbing both our hands in hers and forcing them together. “Say you’re sorry. Make up. Then we’ll have dinner.”

Nero had no one to make up with because he had no one to fight. Other than the occasional visit from his friend, he played outside alone, yet he’d come back inside with fresh scrapes and bruises every day. “Tripped,” he’d say when I asked, or, “Fell down from a tree.” Once, when his hands were covered in scratches, it was, “Tried to catch a squirrel.”

He ended up looking colorful no matter what he wore. Butterfly bandages wrapped around his fingers like rings. Broad, flexible ones covered one or both knees, and the strips on his cheeks looked like uneven war paint. 

Mom usually took over the first aid when she spotted him bleeding, but when she was working, I made sure to keep a closer eye on his returns to the house. He’d tried to sneak this one by me, taking the back route through the laundry room and toward the stairs. He might have gotten away with it had I not noticed the uneven sound of his steps. 

He’d been limping, blood pooling down from his leg into his sock. A deep, shimmering scrape ran down his shin. “Uh, it’s not that bad!” he said as soon as he saw me. “I can get it!”

“No, let me look at it,” I’d said as I walked up and nudged him by the shoulder back toward the laundry room. Like Mom, I sat him on the dryer before pulling one of our many stashed first aid kits from the cabinet above. Mom always kept them stocked with the colorful bandages he liked. 

“What was it this time?” I asked. 

He huffed, turning his eyes to their corners as his cheeks warmed to a pink. “I was running after this pretty bird, and I didn’t see a big log.”

“Why run after a bird?”

“Dunno. Wanted to see where it would go.”

He was used to the rubbing alcohol. Though he winced, he said nothing against it and made no sounds of protest. Dante and I had always complained about it even though our wounds were never as deep. The thought made me my chest feel achingly hollow, that my son should be more accustomed to pain than I was. 

He was tough, but he was so fragile. I needed to train him in preparation for demons that could cut him in half with a single slash of their tails or claws. Father had done much to train Dante and me, and we’d trained each other just as well. But, if Nero already gained so many wounds from simply playing by himself, I feared that trying to train him with sticks or swords would leave him with even more wounds, greater ones. 

Bruises were a necessity with training. I knew that, and yet…

In a flash, Nero’s hand appeared just under my eye. When I blinked, I felt a sticky tug of resistance. A neon orange haze filled the bottom line of my peripheral. “You look sad,” Nero said as he peeled open another bandage. His brows were pinched with worry from whatever had shown on my face. “I will fix it.”

“You shouldn’t waste them,” I said, but I didn’t stop him from adding a purple bandage to my other cheek. 

“I’m not. Evie says they help make you better.” He patted my cheek to make sure it stuck. “Are they working?”

I couldn’t help but smile. It was still odd to see him so concerned with me. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been, and perhaps I shouldn’t have found comfort in it, but I would not have wished for things to change. “Yes, I believe so,” I said. “How’s your leg feeling?”

“Uh, it stings a lot, but it’s okay.” He watched as I placed a line of clean bandages down it. The colors were all mixed together, but he didn’t complain about my choices this time. 

“I know you’ve heard this often, but do be careful,” I said once I was satisfied that the worst of it was covered. “Perhaps your first type of combat training should be on balance.”

“I can balance real good! I usually don’t even fall out of trees.” 

We would work on his debate skills another time. “We’ll try to turn that ‘usually’ into ‘never,’ alright?”

“Never falling out of trees?” His brows rose. “Gosh, I’ll try. You don’t fall out of trees, Dad?”

“I can’t say I do any tree climbing, so I am not able to fall out of them.”

He considered what I said with such seriousness that I had to cover my mouth with my hand to stop myself from laughing. 

“No, I think I will still climb trees,” he decided. “I like being very tall.” 

“Alright, we’ll start with ‘how not to fall out of trees’ and then we’ll move on to ‘how not to trip over logs.’ How does that sound?”

“It sounds hard, but I will do my best,” he said with a nod. “Can there also be one for how to catch squirrels and birds?”

“No, I don’t think we’re going to go over that. Maybe, ‘how to respect wildlife’ instead.”


End file.
